Hands
by sychopenguin5
Summary: FE9. In the middle of the battle for Riven Bridge, Ike has a few rather telling thoughts about his feelings towards his best friend. Short pre-romance oneshot. Birthday giftfic for Gwenyfarlace!


_Author's Note: It's kind of an ongoing joke that I act a lot like Ike and my best friend GwenyfarLace acts like Soren. Because of this, I once joked that I could successfully write Ike's first-person story of how he fell in love with Soren, by basing it on how the two of us interact. Even though it was initially a joke, I just couldn't get the idea out of my head… _

_Sooo… HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GWENY! THIS IS FOR YOU!_

_Yes, it's a train-of-thought narration, so Ike is just telling it how he remembers, without dialogue or extraneous descriptions of the scenery (although I couldn't help putting in some big words, but I'll justify that by saying Soren is rubbing off on him)._

_The setting is Riven Bridge, because I couldn't get that chapter out of my head, especially after how many tries it took me to get it right._

**Hands**

Maybe it started that day with holding hands.

Or…maybe it didn't.

But holding hands was the first thing. The first hint of things to come.

The middle of a battle: I watched Soren blast an enemy soldier with his Elwind, not even paying attention to the slash of my own weapon as I cleaved through a nonthreatening archer. Up ahead, I saw an opening in the enemy's line, straight through to the ballistician who had been raining down on our fighters since the battle began. He needed to be taken out so that Mist and Reyson could come in and heal everybody without worrying about getting hit themselves. I needed backup, and Soren was the perfect choice.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him along as we sprinted forward towards the ballista.

His hands were chilly, I recall, and tinier than mine, softer than mine, but I remember thinking that they were also more deadly because he only needed to wave one in the air to deliver a crushing blow, whereas I needed a large metal object in my hand to do that sort of damage.

I also remember the way the archer manning the ballista looked at us as we bolted towards him still holding tight to each other's hands.

And then an axeman approached from the side, and Soren used his other hand to cast a spell at him, and a lance-wielding foot soldier came running in on my side, and I slashed with my free hand to take him down. We continued a few more steps before coming to a halt by the ballista platform; I quickly dispatched the archer while Soren watched my back against a few more enemies, which we took care of in no time.

Somewhere in there I must have dropped his hand—I would have felt it if he had been the one to pull away—and now we were recovering our breath from the long run. I grinned our victory at him and his mouth twitched at the edge in response.

But the battle wasn't over, still. I just barely heard the twang of a farther-off ballista, and immediately ducked down behind a sandbag wall, grabbing Soren's hand again to yank him down next to me. The bolt flew over both our heads with not a moment to spare. Knowing that it would take time to reload, we both peeked our heads over the barrier to survey the enemy positions in front of us.

Our fingers were still loosely intertwined as they rested on the stone floor. Somehow, the contact felt right to me. We'd known each other our whole lives, and there were no secrets between us, so why shouldn't we be allowed to touch? Ever since we first met, we'd always been by each other's sides. We were inseparable even when we _weren't _physically connected.

There were too many enemies between us and the next ballista threat; we should wait for the rest of our fighting force to catch up before charging in. It was also remarkable that not only did we both know this, but we both knew that the other knew as well, so neither of us said it out loud. I hadn't even told him my plan when I pulled him towards the ballista we just attacked, but he'd known what I was thinking anyway.

I guess his version of battle tactics is so well-ingrained in my mind, and my fighting style is so predictable to him, that we unconsciously think the same way in battle.

I saw Stefan, Zihark, Rolf, Tormod, and Ranulf catching up to us. They knew we were there and ran straight past our position to engage the enemy soldiers beyond. Soren started to stand up and join the attack, but I pulled his hand down again. He gave me a puzzled expression.

"Oh, just let them take this without us. We just had our hero's charge; let's let someone else get some credit!" I don't know what put me in such a good mood, especially when this was proving to be such a difficult battle. But Soren at least accepted my "logic" and after nodding, simply leaned against the sandbags and closed his eyes.

I watched him, this fearless warrior and brilliant mind who has always been my best friend. Knowing that I was looking out for him allowed him to drop his guard, even in the middle of battle, so he could relax and regain his focus, plan our next move.

I looked down and was almost surprised to see my own hand still wrapped around his.

Or rather, it didn't surprise me that my own hand was still there, because I'd been the one to put it there and hadn't yet considered moving it, but what was surprising was that Soren had wrapped his fingers around mine in response…

And then we noticed that sounds of our comrades fighting had faded, so we got up and pursued them across the rest of the bridge, in time to see Rolf take out the general* with his signature deadly spectacle of spinning arrows. I whooped aloud when Mist snuck up on a wounded wyvern rider and slashed him open*—proof that sword skills run in my family, and I'm not a total failure as a teacher of swordplay. Soren seemed to agree that neither of us were needed, so we leisurely made our way to the control tower of the bridge which had been our goal from the start.

Maybe it started that day with holding hands.

Or, maybe it didn't.

_Author's Note: So yeah, that's what came out when I randomly started writing my own Ike/Soren. Riven Bridge is one of my favorite chapters, (even though it took me like 4 tries to complete without killing anyone) and I had just recently finished it, so that's where my mind led when I was thinking of a setting for this. But after I wrote it, I realized that I thought that was too late in the story for Ike and Soren to be at that beginning stage of relationship. So I started over figuring out a timeline for Ike and Soren's relationship that would run parallel to my other fire Emblem headcanons. I won't start posting a chapter fic until I know it's already done though, so I'm publishing this unrelated oneshot in the meantime until I get the longer Ike/Soren done._

_*The bit at the end where Rolf kills the general with his arrow-spinning…that really happened in my game. Sniper Rolf vs. Petrine…and the boy comes out unscathed. Critical, dodge, critical, and the boss is GONE! And after that, I did indeed have Mist pick off a wounded Wyvern Rider, too. Also as in this fic, I tend to use Ike and Soren as my front lines to blast through killing everything in their path…until I notice they're stealing all the XP and I have to let everyone else catch up. Haha._

_And a special thanks to Anastaisya for the last-minute beta.  
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GWENYFARLACE!_


End file.
